To Live Again
by N7angel
Summary: Kate's world ended the moment Edward was turned. After nearly ten years of running, she's been captured by the vampire army and the only one capable of keeping her blood in her veins and her heart beating is Edward. But they've both changed so much, as has the world. Can their once unbreakable relationship be mended? Will either of them live long enough to fix it?... Edward/OC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **_**I was tempted to write a Frankie/OC fic, but I noticed that there are so very few fics with Edward so I decided to write an Edward/OC. My OC's name is Kate, and before vampires took over she was Edward's fiancée.**_

_**This chapter is set in 2009 when the whole outbreak is taking place, and Edward is 35 and Kate is 26. Yes, she's nine years younger, but I didn't want to have her be only a couple of years younger than Edward while he's human only to be in her forties during the events of the movie, you know? Besides, a nine year age difference isn't all that much these days it seems (shoot, two of my friends are married and there's a twelve year difference there). **_

_**It takes place in 2009 in this chapter only, but then it'll jump to about a five or six months before the events of the movie.**_

**Disclaimer: **_**I do not own **_**Daybreakers**_**.**_

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***2009***

Kate had never been overly affected by horror stories, movies, and whatnot. To her, they were kind of silly and ridiculous.

And then that vampire virus struck the world, turning her life and the life of every living human into a genuine nightmare.

The virus started popping up here and there about two months ago, seemingly isolated incidents, but then it began to spread at an alarming rate due to the vampire's need for blood or desire to turn loved ones and friends. Some called it the evolution of the human race, others called it a disease, but regardless of what it was called this was only just beginning and humans were already facing some tough decisions. Kate had been visiting her parents for the past few weeks while her mother recovered from surgery, and right around that time things began to get very bad.

Gripping her steering wheel tightly, Kate glanced repeatedly through her window towards the steadily rising sun as she made her way home. Driving at night these days was incredibly risky, but she'd needed to get to get back to her fiancé as soon as possible and was willing to risk the night, all the while regretting her decision to forgo her fiancé's pleas for her not to go.

Ed, her fiancé as of three months ago, had insisted that she stay at home due to how dangerous the world was becoming, and she'd argued that he should just come with her. That had been an unrealistic request on her part seeing as he was a hematologist working on trying to solve what was going on. He couldn't just up and leave, just as she couldn't not go to her mother's aid when her mother practically begged her to come and be with them. In the end, she made the nine hour drive to her parent's house, promising to come back if things worsened in the world.

And they worsened quickly.

Only three weeks into her stay with her parents, hell started breaking loose and the options of humans became narrowed down to four little choices – go into hiding, to head to designated safe zones that had been set up all over the world, turn, or become food for the vampires. During their phone calls over the last few days, Edward stated that the so-called safe zones were a joke and were unsafe, and turning into a monster was the last thing either of them wanted, so that left them with only one thing to do.

Run.

Her parents decided that they would all go to their cabin in the mountains and try to wait this thing out or something, and since Ed had never been up to the cabin, Kate opted to risk the drive through the night to get back home so they could head there together.

They'd talked yesterday and she promised to call when she was close, and twenty minutes ago she called but got no answer from Ed. Contributing the reason to him being in the shower or something, she simply stepped on the gas and sped home just as the sun cast it's glow on their house.

Barely taking the time to put the car in park, she ran inside.

"Ed, I'm back!" she called.

Pulling off her dark brown leather jacket – a gift Edward had given her last year for her birthday – she tossed it onto a chair and set to work on packing the possessions she couldn't part with, knowing Edward would focus more on clothes and things he felt were key to figuring out the vampire epidemic.

In the closet by the door, she found one of their smaller suitcases that had never been used and pulled it out, caring little about the things that came tumbling out with it. She scrambled into the living room where she hastily began taking down all the framed photos and stuffed them into the suitcase along with a photo album she'd been putting together for the past year. "Ed, I tried to call you. My parents wanted us to bring as much food as we could with us since their cabin doesn't have a whole hell of a lot. The stores are a mad house and the grocery store down the street had a sign warning people to stay away, so I didn't even bother stopping. Did you get a hold of your brother?" There was no reply so she looked up from her task, brows knitting together as she waited for him to answer. "Ed?"

Silence followed, and she frowned, pausing in her haste to pack up the photos and the album, noticing for the first time that Ed was nowhere in sight, and he certainly would not still be in the shower. There was no reason for him not to come see her the moment she walked through the door. Even if they'd had a fight, he _always _went to her before doing anything else whether he was the one getting home or she was. For him to not even reply or acknowledge her presence…

Swallowing the lump that suddenly formed in her throat, Kate hurried into the kitchen and snatched a steak knife from a drawer. It probably wouldn't do a bit of good against what lurked in the shadows these days, but it made her feel better.

With her heart pounding painfully in her chest, she slowly made her way through the first floor of the relatively small two-story house in search of Ed, praying to God that he was either taking an exceptionally long shower or was still asleep for whatever reason, though both were incredibly unlikely. Since she couldn't hear the shower running, that possibility was quickly crossed off the list.

She poked her head into the guest bedroom, hoping to find him in there for whatever reason since it was the last room on the first floor that she'd yet to look through, but he wasn't in there. That left the upstairs, and she swallowed thickly as she came to a halt at the bottom of the staircase, the curtains drawn to hide the sunlight trying to shine through at the top of the steps. In fact, she noticed that all of the curtains were drawn, making the house seem eerily dark, and that filled her with an acute sense of dread.

Did she really want to go up there?

The sun had only just come up, leaving plenty of time for a vampire to invade her and Ed's home, but it was so quiet that it seemed as if she were the only one there. Or was that the vampire's plan and it was just waiting to get the jump on her by lulling her into a false sense of security?

Regardless, she wasn't leaving the house until she was sure Ed was not there, and that meant that she had to go upstairs.

Tucking a lock of dark blond hair behind her ear, forcing down her nerves, Kate slowly made her way up the steps. "Ed? You up here?"

There was no reply.

The stairs creaked with each step she took, echoing loudly in her ears and making her cringe each and every time, her grip on both the knife and the railing so tight that her knuckles turned white with the force of it. Never did she know that the quiet creaking of the steps could be so damn loud, and it felt like an eternity had passed before she finally reached the top of the staircase.

Ed's office was closest so she went there first and found that his laptop was in it's case on the desk as well as the cords and whatnot, but the case for his laptop was unzipped. She wandered over just to check it out, and she found a framed photo resting on top of the gray laptop in the case.

Despite the panic she was feeling, she very nearly smiled.

At the time the photo was taken when she was twenty-four and he was thirty-three, they'd already been dating for about a year and they were both attending their friends Christopher and Heather's wedding – those two having been the ones who introduced them to each other in the first place. Heather wanted everyone in the wedding party to pose for various photos, and since Kate was a bridesmaid that meant that she had to be in a lot of photos, but the one that Ed always had on his desk at home was the only one she'd been happy to have taken. As clear as day, she remembered the photographer snapping a few photos of them smiling or grinning at each other until he finally told Ed to look at her like he loved her, and the result was a photo that always brightened her day.

With the park as the backdrop, Ed was standing behind Kate with his arms wrapped around her waist, her delicate hands resting on his arms, and he was looking down at her with the softest smile on his face, looking at her like she was the most precious thing in the world. That expression nearly left her breathless in that moment and caused her cheeks to become flushed, and in return she was looking up at him with equal adoration, her own smile playing at her slightly parted lips.

The day that photo was taken was the day he asked her to move in with him, and things just progressed from there.

A thud from another room nearly had her jumping out of her skin and she dropped the framed photo, causing the glass to crack, and she was brought back to the reality that something was terribly wrong in her and Edward's house.

Trembling, adrenaline seeping into her system, Kate kept her eyes locked on the officer door as she slowly leaned down to remove the photo from the frame, fold it, and tuck it into the back pocket of her jeans.

She stood back up, tightening her grip on the knife once more, and nervously she called out, "Ed?"

Feeling tears sting her eyes when he said nothing, she walked out of the office and looked towards their bedroom, concluding that the thud had come from there, and she slowly made her way down the hall.

She pushed open the door and saw two suitcases lying open on the bed, blood splattered all over them and their clothes, and she pressed her hand over her mouth. Drawers were open, one suitcase was already zipped up but the other was only half packed… it was like he'd been interrupted while packing, but no one had broken in. Various photos and knickknacks on the dresser were knocked over as if there had been some sort of struggle, and the amount of blood on the floor…

Kate felt sick to her stomach, and then she noticed that there was a bloody handprint on the wall near the bathroom, another on the door-frame, the door closed.

Biting her lower lip so hard she thought that she might draw blood, Kate walked over to the bathroom, finding more blood on the door knob.

She didn't bother calling out to Ed this time and instead put her hand on the door knob that was sticky with drying blood, turned it, and frowned when she found it to be locked.

Gritting her teeth, she rammed her shoulder into the door and tried to force it open, suddenly so very desperate to get inside even though she dreaded what she would find.

"Damn it, come on!" she pleaded desperately, hitting the door with her shoulder again and again until it hurt.

Just as she was about to hit it once more, she heard movement from inside the bathroom followed by the distinct sound of the door being unlocked.

Suddenly unsure, she hesitated for close to a minute before she cautiously turned the knob and opened the door.

"Oh, God, Ed!" she cried, dropping to her knees beside him as he struggled to sit up against the wall next to the door, a light blue hand-towel soaked through with blood lying on the other side of the bathroom, his white shirt just as bloody, and she saw two small wounds on his neck that were still oozing blood. "No… no, no, no!"

Fighting to remain conscious, he mouthed something to her that she couldn't make out, and she just shook her head at him.

"You're gonna be okay, this… this is nothing," she insisted through her tears, pressing her hand to the bite. She'd heard that vampire bites bleed like nothing else, but there was so much blood! "We... we gotta go while it's still light out! C'mon, get up!" she urged, trying to help him stand.

Ed shook his head, trying to force her away, knowing full well what was happening to him and not wanting to endanger her. But it was more than that. He was almost panicked. "Get out of here, Kate."

"No, I'm not going anywhere without you!"

With a small burst of strength, he shoved her hard enough to send her tumbling onto her butt, blood from the floor staining her jeans and she knocked her head on the sink behind her.

Kate blinked at him, taken aback by the shove since he'd never once done anything like that to her.

"You don't understand, you have to get out of here," he bit out, ignoring her shocked response to his action. "Frankie… he's still here."

Through her heartbreak, she was thoroughly confused, and then she heard the door to the bedroom creak open.

Darting to her feet, she stepped out of the bathroom, refusing to move too far from Ed, and her heart hammered painfully in her chest when she saw Frankie standing in the doorway of the bedroom, his eyes now an unnatural yellow, blood staining his brown shirt.

Ed's blood.

"Hey, Kate," Frankie greeted with a heavy sigh.

Gaping at Ed's little brother, Kate stammered, "What… what have you done?"

"Vampires are at the top of the food chain now, or at least they will be in only a few more months if that," Frankie explained, stepping further inside, and he shook his head sadly when she stepped away from him. "I didn't want to die, so… I let them turn me."

"And the first item on your agenda was to feed off your own damn brother?" she shouted angrily, appalled and enraged and hurt all at the same time. She and Frankie had never really gotten along, but she never suspected he would do this. "You're gonna kill me too, is that it? You waited for me to get in here so you could corner me just like you cornered Ed!"

"Kate..." Ed warned weakly, grabbing her ankle as if it would help hold in her rising anger and hate.

More than angry with her accusation, Frankie snapped, "It's not like that! Don't even think it's like that!"

"Then what was it?" she demanded, feeling like a trapped animal, wanting to run but refusing to leave Ed even as he pleaded for her to just shut up and run. "Because all I see is another diseased –"

"Watch it," Frankie warned tightly.

"Bloodthirsty –"

"I'm warning you…"

Ignoring him, she shouted, "Monster!"

At that exact moment, Frankie lunged for her, causing her to scream and lash out at him with her knife, catching him in the chest with it.

The strike of the knife made him falter, pain erupting from the wound, and it gave her just enough time to yank her foot from Ed's weak grip and dart across the room to the window. He recovered quickly, though, and he was on her in a second, ignoring his brother's shouts to get away from her.

Just as he prepared to bite her, Kate grabbed for the closed curtains and threw them open, letting the sunlight in.

"Fuck!" Frankie shrieked, pushing away from and recoiling from the sun as the light burned him, bolting into the bathroom to hide there with his brother.

The adrenaline coursing through her veins made her shake, and she pressed herself against the window as if it were her saving grace.

She looked at Frankie in utter disbelief, green eyes wide.

He was going to bite her!

Whether he was intending to kill or turn her didn't matter, he'd attacked her with the intent to bite! He'd attacked her after attacking his own brother!

Her teary gaze turned to Ed who was half leaning out of the bathroom, looking at her with eyes that weren't quite blue anymore, his expression just as heartbroken as her's was.

Kate didn't want to leave him like this, on the bathroom floor all bloody, in the process of turning into the last thing he ever wanted to become, but if she stayed she would lose the sunlight eventually and Frankie would come after her for her blood. Maybe even Ed would come after her, and that thought tore a sob from her.

"Ed… I can't…" Unable to get the rest out, she just shook her head sorrowfully at Ed.

She didn't need to say a word.

"S'okay," Ed assured her, words slurring as he forced his eyes to stay open. "Go."

Frankie gaped at her. "Are you fucking crazy? You'll be killed out there!"

Ignoring him, she unlocked the window and opened it.

Angrily, he demanded, "You're just gonna leave me brother?"

She didn't bother arguing with him even though his claim that she was leaving Ed made her want to rip his head off. She didn't bother telling him that _he _took Ed from her the moment he bit him.

Just as she got one leg out the window and was about to duck out, Ed called weakly to her, "Katie…"

Her heart constricted painfully at the use of her nickname, and she looked at him one last time.

"… Love you."

Kate nearly choked on her tears. "I love you too."

Without another word, knowing that if she said anything else or looked at him again she wouldn't leave, Kate scrambled out the window onto the roof and oh so carefully dropped down onto the porch. Her ankle throbbed upon landing, but she ignored it and hurried around to the front of the house, running back inside to grab her keys and nothing else before running back outside.

Getting in her car and slamming the door shut, Kate started the engine, slammed it into reverse, then tore off down the street, refusing to ever look back.

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**_Reviews are welcomed! In fact, they're encouraged!_  
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	2. Chapter 2

It had been hours since Ed arrived at Bromely Marks and it felt to him as if nothing at all had been accomplished.

Roughly three after turning, when it became clear to him that solving the vampire epidemic that he was now a part of, vampires being at the top of the food chain now, he left the hospital he'd been working at for years and went to work for Charles Bromely at Bromely Marks after he heard on the news that there was talk of creating a blood substitute.

A majority of the world hadn't cared about finding a substitute, believing that they would always have humans to farm and harvest, but activists insisted that they find another way to survive, insisting that at the rate they were going humans would one day go extinct. It was laughable at the time, but it wasn't now, not when third world countries were starving and the percentage of remaining humans had fallen to the single digits only ten years after the outbreak. Now, the whole world was desperate for a blood substitute, and his job that was once damn near laughed at by fellow vampires was now held in the highest regard, and Ed was among the most respected in the field as he was Bromely Marks' chief hematologist.

None of it would matter, however, if he didn't create a blood substitute that wasn't fatal as all the others serums had been. He'd conducted so many tests, made so many concoctions, but each and every one was a failure, killing the test animals or the vampire test subject depending on how far the testing went. It was enough to make him want to pace and pull his hair out, the hunger getting to him just as it was everyone else, making him desperate for a solution for not only the sake of the human race but also because even the pigs blood he drank was becoming more and more depleted by the day, forcing him to drink human blood here and there just to survive.

In all honesty, he was better off that a lot of other vampires considering who he worked for, but he refused to drink human blood unless he absolutely had to. It wasn't because human blood tasted God awful, it was because it tasted so damn good, and that fact sickened him. Becoming a vampire was the last thing he ever wanted, yet his own brother forcibly turned him for whatever reason, costing him more than his heartbeat.

Ed sighed, a pang of sadness piercing his dead heart as it did whenever he thought about Kate. They'd been as close as anyone could get once, inseparable even, but just as he hadn't wanted to turn, neither had she, and that grief stricken look on her face when she fled through the day he was bit had become seared into his brain. Never would he forget how heartbroken she looked, how angry she sounded when confronting Frankie, nor would he forget the way she said "I love you, too" like it were a goodbye.

It had been goodbye.

Nearly ten years had passed since he last saw her, and he hadn't a clue where she was or if she were even still alive. Regularly, he checked the manifest of humans caught and brought to Bromely Marks and other corporations like it to see if her name appeared – background checks were run from dental records to ensure healthy blood was provided to vampires – but thank God it never had. That didn't mean she was alive and well, though, just… not farmed.

Sighing, Ed forced Kate from his thoughts and peered into the microscope to study a sample of the latest blood substitute that had been concocted to see how it reacted to a drop of vampire blood.

For a moment there was no reaction at all, but then the substitute ate away at the cells of the vampire blood.

He sat back in his chair with a huff, frustrated beyond belief.

They had a few months to half a year before their blood supplies ran out.

He had no time for more failures.

"Ed?" Christopher called from across the lab, getting his friend's attention. "There's a call for you – line two."

Pushing his chair back to where a phone was on the wall, he picked it up on line two. "Dalton."

Cynthia, Charles Bromely's personal secretary, replied sweetly from the other end, "Dr. Dalton, Mr. Bromely would like to speak with you in his office."

"I'll be right there," Ed replied, frowning.

He reported directly to Bromely, but his boss rarely asked to speak with him while he was in the middle of testing unless it was of the utmost importance. All he could think was the reason was that there was perhaps something going on with the blood supply or a problem with his experiments concerning the blood substitute.

Hanging up the phone, he walked to the lab doors where Christopher still stood.

"Well?"

He glanced at his friends as they walked down the hall to Ed's office. "Bromely wants to see me in his office."

"About the substitute?"

"Don't know," he sighed. "I don't see what else it could be about, though, not with the hearing in a few days."

Christopher nodded, smirking grimly.

Whatever Bromely wanted to talk about, a sinking feeling had settled in Ed's gut.

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For the past few minutes, Ed sat in Bromely's spacious office, politely refusing a cup of coffee as Bromely sorted through a few things at his desk.

Not much had been said as of yet, just a few pleasantries, the offering of coffee, but that was really it. Bromely was more focused on looking over what he had on his desk than anything else. Judging from that and the fact that he'd yet to say a word about the substitute, Ed was inclined to believe that whatever this was all about had nothing to do with his work on the blood substitute.

After a moment, Bromely turned to face Ed.

"Last night a handful of humans were captured," his boss informed him. "Per standard procedure, all of their possessions were confiscated and sorted through for any evidence as to where others may be hiding. One of the soldiers found something interesting on one of the humans and immediately brought it to my attention."

Ed frowned. "I don't entirely follow, sir. What does this have to do with me?"

Turning to close and pick up a small metal box similar to a safety deposit box, Bromely walked to the plush chair where he and took a seat across from Ed.

He opened the box and retrieved a photo, looking at it for a long moment, and Ed craned his head slightly in an effort to see what exactly it was, wondering just what any of this had to do with him.

"This photo was found on one of the captured humans – the woman in the photo, to be specific," Bromely explained, setting the photo on the center of the table for Ed to see. "I am going to go out on a limb and assume you know her."

Had Ed's heart been beating, it would have skipped a beat, perhaps even stopped as he gaped in shock at the photo resting on the table.

It was of him and Kate, the one that he always had on his desk when he was human, and the one that went missing the day he was turned.

He was nearly trembling when he picked it up to look at it more closely.

The photo had seen better days – the edges were tattered and frayed, deep creases from being folded so many times for so long had been left behind – but it now seemed much more precious than it had been almost ten years ago.

"Who is she?" Bromely asked.

Glancing at him for a moment before turning his eyes back to the photo, he replied quietly, "Kate Reynolds. She… she was my fiancée. I haven't seen her since I was turned back in 2009."

Bromely sighed and speculated with a note of sympathy, "She feared what you'd become and ran."

Ed hesitated to answer, the day he turned being too personal and heartbreaking for him to want to talk about with nearly anyone. But he had to tell Bromely something, anything to appease him because he said that the woman in the photo had been the one carrying the photo.

Kate was alive, but she'd been captured.

Ed wasn't going to let her be farmed, so for now he'd talk to Bromely. Besides, his boss sounded like he had an inkling of the situation, or at least a slight idea.

"She'd said that she would rather die than turn – we both said as much," Ed admitted somewhat reluctantly. "It wasn't a pretty sight after I was turned, and she got scared after she was attacked by the vampire who turned me. I wasn't going to force her into a life she didn't want, so I let her go. Wasn't hard for her to put some distance between us since it was light out."

"Change is hard for some to accept, and impossible for others," Bromely observed with a weary nod. "Not everyone sees this as a gift, and I suspect it took some time for you to accept it as such, am I correct?"

Ed nodded, not trusting himself to sound sincere if he spoke since he believed this to be a curse, anything but a gift.

Holding the photo tightly, protectively in his hands, Ed said, "I want to see her."

"In due time," he assured him, leaning forward with his hand interlaced. "There are certain terms we need to discuss."

"Terms?" Ed repeated, not entirely liking the sound of that.

Nodding, Bromely explained, "This would normally not be permitted, not unless there was a guarantee that she would be turned, but given the uniqueness of the situation I've called in a few favors and have spoken to the proper authorities who have agreed to release her from the facility and into your custody with a few conditions."

Ed sat forward, listening intently. "What conditions?"

"Firstly, she'll be on permanent house arrest and will not be permitted to leave your home during the day, and must never remove the ankle bracelet that would be put on her. If she's to go outside, it will only be during nighttime hours and she must stay on your property. Second, she's not under any circumstances allowed to speak to another human. There will be no second chances if she breaks any of these rules – she'll be taken into custody immediately and harvested should she violate the terms of her release. You'll also face a considerable fine, though I suspect that it's not your well-being good that you're concerned with."

That was most certainly true. He was technically already dead – Kate was very much alive. The only well-being he cared about was her's, not his, and a "fine" was hardly a concern.

There was just one thing he was wondering about.

"Does Kate know about this arrangement?" he asked.

Bromely shook his head. "When she and the others were found, she killed two vampires, and when one of the soldiers tried to drop her food off to her cell she attacked him as well. I don't think she's interested in anything I have to say. You, however, she might listen to given your history together."

He wasn't entirely sure about that. "She hated vampires in 2009, and now she's killing vampires…" Trailing off, a thought popped into his head and he asked, "Why are you letting her go when she's killed vampires, even if she would be on permanent house arrest?"

"Make no mistake, I'm putting a lot on the line and the only reason I'm not having her prepped for blood harvesting is because you are my chief hematologist and because that photo was found," Bromely explained sternly. "Had you not just told me she'd been your fiancée or shown such concern for her well-being, I'd have never made requests to have her life spared and would not have mentioned her. With that being said… I have some understanding of the matter, and am willing to take this risk considering your position here."

Ed was inwardly ecstatic that Kate was getting a chance and wasn't going to be strung up, but at the same time she was getting special treatment because she was connected to him, and so many other humans were not given this chance to live. That didn't sit well with him, but despite his misgivings about it he wasn't going to bring it up with Bromely. He wasn't going to make ripples.

"And she won't be forced to turn and won't be harvested?" Ed asked, needing confirmation.

"That depends entirely on you and her, Edward," Bromely replied. "If she wishes to turn or you wish to turn her, that's your business, but if she breaks the rules laid out before her she will be detained and processed."

Kate had always been stubborn, and knowing that she'd killed vampires made him nervous, because nearly ten years had passed, and when he knew her she had never been one for violence. She didn't ever hit or slap even when people might have deserved it, and even though she was so stubborn she never threw anything or reacted physically out of anger. In fact, the first time he ever saw her hurt anyone was when Frankie attacked her on that fateful day.

Now she was killing vampires, understandable considering she was human, but still so unlike her, and that was what worried him.

He didn't want to risk her doing something that would get her killed.

Still, this was the only chance she was going to get, plain and simple.

Convincing Kate would be the biggest challenge.

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**_Reviews are welcomed! In fact, they're encouraged!_**


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